Tag: New Year’s

My friends, we are on the cusp of 2019. It is not a new thing to be thinking of what we want to change, manifest, or release. This is a wired into us. Before the modern world, the people knew that the wheel was turning. The twelve days of Christmas was originally the twelve days of Yule and it ended on the 1st of the month, right when the wheel turns. It is the thick of winter, a time of deep contemplation. A bright new beginning. A time of rebirth from the solstice when the sun begins to shine a bit more each day. The light in us grows ever more as well.

My work is as an herbalist, a clairvoyant reader, medical intuitive, and spiritual guide. This is an unusual time. Most everyone is in great transformation. It is as if the universe is plucking things right out of people’s hands; relationships, jobs, identities. Our worst traits are being exposed to the sun in order to change. Our paths are being laid out in drastic form. It is best if we just release.

We are in a time of great change. We are in a time when the young have more intuitive and sensitive people among them and they are struggling to understand why they are the way they are and are looking for mentors…or masking medications. We are all being called to find our path. To release our bad habits, fears, and ego and to embrace a better sense of self. 2019 may be a miraculous year for us all. There are whispers and questions in the air that need answers.

What relationships cause you pain and stress?

Are your food choices compassionate, healthy, and karmically sound?

Are you honoring your body with movement?

Are you honoring your spirituality by being open to listen to truths being taught to you? Are you taking time to honor that which you believe in?

Are you emotionally taking wellness breaks?

Are you working yourself every minute of the day for the car payment, for the dishes to be done, for the endless errands and hours at work to be done?

Your passions and desires are the road map to your destiny. What do you dream of? What does your life look like in your ideal world? Who are you with? What do you do?

What fears need to be released? What negative habits need to be let go of? What regrets do you carry? Forgiving yourself is as important as forgiving others.

As we take the final footsteps of 2016 we look back on the year past. It was a very good year for us, but a lot of folks have gone through similar circumstances as our dreadful 2015 of loss, and I know we are all looking towards 2017 with great anticipation and hope. It seems the universe is sweeping so much from all of us, a cleansing of sorts, a realization of the reliance we had on items, jobs, people, and places, a new chapter of self discovery and path changes has occurred to most people I know. This can be a very good thing. Through the ashes and chaos comes a bright new path through the woods of adventure, inspiration, great views of beauty and joy that could only be experienced through darkness. This is going to be a beautiful year, Friends. (What are your resolutions?)

Every year I plot my course, a rigid syllabus filled with learn everything about…., master this language, do this, achieve that, be in perfect physical shape and eat only green smoothies for a year! This year I sit with pen and paper and attempt to write out my desired life. My beautiful new house awaits our family. There is a garden to tend (an entire yard to garden, that is!). My shop is busy. We are planning a second shop down south. I find myself battling questions like, “Should I still teach?” “Should I start the homesteading school up again?” Every cell of my body wants to sit with a cup of coffee and a good magazine. I realize that I do not need to plot out the whole year. I don’t want to teach…right now. Perhaps I will later. Perhaps I won’t. I have spent so long coming up with every hair brained scheme to make enough money for us to survive that this year I want to just trust. We are good. I am taken care of. I am blessed. (What blessings did you have this year?)

This year I want to live. I never put that on my resolutions. I want to rest more. Spend more time with friends. Go dancing. Go travel a bit. Read more. Eat well. Be happy. Laugh more. I am far too serious. I must learn to laugh. (What do you need to do more of?)

In order to achieve this deep seeded peace and happiness I realize that I need to get rid of animosities and deep seeded irritations. I have such a profound anger, I realize, towards the medical model. The urgent cares popping up on every corner. Friends in the hospital under care for things obviously caused by drugs they are on, only to be given more drugs that interact. The brainwashing of society to believe that doctors know everything and that we have to take their advice, must take the pharmaceutical companies’ drugs, must run to urgent care for fever, sprained ankles, you must not make your own decisions towards health care….I fall in a heap of sadness that mothers have lost their power to heal. I want to reteach everyone that plant medicines are every bit as effective, or more so, that they heal, that you can treat yourself, that you can….Another commercial comes on for another drug that won’t heal. Marijuana also parading around pretending to be medicine. I sigh and take another sip of tea. I have to let this go. I have to let this go. (What do you need to let go of?)

People can do their research, they can read side effects, they can make their own decisions. I am not responsible for the world. I need to just do my work. Make my medicines. Help those that come. Love them. Smile. Help who I am sent. Breathe. I am not responsible for the world. We all just need to do what we are here to do. Do your work with great love and passion. (What is your work? Hint: not necessarily what you do for a living.)

Live. That is my new year’s resolution. I want to live. Be in the moment. Laugh. Smile. Love with all of my heart. And all will be well with the world. All the other resolutions will fall into place. But peace is the best resolution we can have. The dawn of 2017 looks wondrous. (What are your hopes for the year?)

Well, the New Year is upon us and we have a picture painted of our year to come. Or do you? It is time to illustrate your life! When you draw or write something out that is your heart’s desire it will take on that shape. This is the letter that Doug and I wrote to the universe and all its helpers, the Creator, and whoever else can help.

Dear Universe,

We would like a farm. We would like to make a living farming. We would like to make enough to travel a little, save, live simply, and comfortably (for us).

We would like to be on a well. We would like solar/wind power. Small units that give what we need for small appliances and electronics. We would like a root cellar.

We would like to not have a mortgage. A small house with an open kitchen, living space, loft bedroom, built in bunk beds, and bedroom with half wall. Open hearth and wood stove. About 800 square feet.

We would like to be near Maryjane, our shop, our children, and our communities. In trees with open pasture and arable land.

We would like to have farm animals; goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, cows, turkeys, horses, donkey, and a dog. Oh, and a small pond. We need to not worry about keeping our farm so we need to make x amount.

Wado. Thank you. Love, Doug and Katie

Now, this is in the works now. But I can’t just sit back and wait. What can I do to help prepare? I can try and save xy amount each month. I can get our student loans back up to date. I can plan and collect moving boxes and get the seed catalogues out. I can make connections with other farmers and figure out where I am getting my animals. I can research dog breeds. I can dream but I also need to live today. I do tend to get consumed.

For resolutions like going to the gym, juicing, canning, et cetera, make your plan and then cut it in half. Tell yourself you only have to do it half of your original plan. If you do it more, than score! But you take the pressure off of yourself and are far more likely to succeed.

Did you spend some time yesterday deciding what you want in the new year? We must be specific, you know. Write down a few things that you really would like to manifest and create this coming year.

Now why do you want that? Really think about that.

I wanted to go back to school. Teaching license, free school, four years, guaranteed job. I could homeschool Maryjane and make a difference in children’s lives. Great, but why? Out of fear. I read an article (click here to read) about a young woman who chose to plant corn over going to Harvard. The simple ways of life have gone away with the idea that the corporate and socialized world is the only the way to survive. When really taking care of the Earth and those around us is a far more valiant task. I wanted to school because I am afraid of remaining poor. I do not want to work in a common core setting or even for someone else. As my shop gathers speed I look around and see that my place in among my herbs, my plants, my community, my garden, and encouraging everyone I encounter.

What I really want to manifest is a farm. If my shop could manifest itself out of nothing in a just a few weeks, couldn’t a farm do the same thing?

Do you want to manifest something because your peers expect you to? because someone wants you to? Do you have a passion for what you are manifesting? If you can talk about it with a smile on your face and a can’t wait attitude then write it on the resolutions sheet. We’re going to make some great things happen this year. I want to plant corn.

Five days until the new year begins. Just another day, but still in my heart the dawn will shine bright and this year will be but a whisper in time.

We will be starting a new tradition this year. At Pat and Rodney’s house, after Pat and I make a delicious celebratory dinner and before we sing karaoke until the new year, we will write on slips of paper. Write. Each bad happening. Each disappointment. Each bad habit we want to change. One by one they will slip into the roaring fire of New Year’s Eve and dissipate. Then we will write each thing we want to manifest. Send it the universe in a prayer of smoke. A symbolic resolution.

I will be glad to see 2016’s hopeful face.

And for the next few days leading up to the New Year I will lead you through an exercise. Not necessarily writing down that you promise to go to the gym six days a week and drink green smoothies for the entire year but really big things. We are all going to manifest what we want. Document. Detail. Release what we need to release. Heal broken hearts. And start whirling into motion exactly what we want.

Doug and I bought a calendar last night. Of baby goats. Let the manifesting begin. Start thinking about what you are ready to release and manifest. It’s going to be a good year.

The sun is shining brightly on this lovely New Year’s morn as a feeling of hope and aspiration overcomes us. We release the last year, accept its many lessons, rejoice that we are here this morning to breathe and revel in unstoppable dreams and goals.

What is in store for Farmgirl School this year? My lists are brimming.

This year we will completely immerse ourselves in permaculture (Doug and I are already busy reading books and listening to lectures on the subject…such a foreign concept to us as we have been gardening the same way for so long but are excited to completely change for the better our way of farming.) and create an oasis here on our new homestead with fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, perennials, annuals, container gardening, cold frames, green house?…lots of big ideas. Join us as we grow mushrooms this year and more herbs too. Let’s learn to hunt wild foods and eat weeds.

Let me show you how to make medicines with wild herbs and many ways to administer them. There is lots of wacky information out there on herbal medicine, let me just teach you how easy and effective it is. We’ll make our homesteading and herbalist school a great success and meet lots of folks from all over on the way.

Let’s get some more farm animals maybe, and learn many more skills. I will teach you how to make hard cheeses. Let’s eat our way around the world and learn more ethnic cooking. Who knows what else we will learn in our journey this year!

I love the idea of the proverbial clean slate ahead of me. Unwritten days and new attitudes, memories, and experiences at hand. As always, thank you for following us on this journey. Last year we found the homestead that we dreamed of and learned many valuable lessons that will be pivotal to our experiences this year. I love receiving your letters. Should you like to correspond please drop me a line via snail mail. Mrs. Katie Sanders, 7080 Calhan Rd So, #2, Calhan, CO, 80808 or if you are in Elizabeth on Mondays, come by Grumpy’s coffee shop and sit a spell with me. I love seeing who is reading my writings and learning from each other.

I love to entertain! Being a farmgirl is not all about perpetually dirty fingernails, loose chickens, and seed catalogues. It is about living a simple life. Living a simple life, however, means I am not off to the theater all the time to see a play (just once in a while) like I used to be and knowing that every time I go out to eat I am spending just a little more of my future homestead money. So, what is a girl supposed to do to have a good time? Have friends over for dinner, drinks, and laughs of course!

My friends from the city will bring empty egg cartons to refill and will bring a dish or a drink. We laugh until our sides hurt. They must like coming here because it is quite a drive but they are here often and I love it. Crossing the bridge into our little town brings instant serenity.

My friends from the country will bring a canned good or a great bottle of wine. We skip down the country roads to each other’s houses often and enjoy a long evening of dreaming up new implements for our farms, what chicken breeds to get next year, and play music on the fiddle and guitar.

It costs nothing to have friends over and it will prove to be more fun than any movie or fancy restaurant. (Don’t get me wrong, when we do go out on a date, it costs a pretty penny. I apparently am spoiled.)

Here are some ideas for a lovely New Year’s lunch or dinner complete with my recipe for Seafood Chowder.

First pick a decorating style:

If you use a regular tablecloth make sure it has a stunning print. Big florals are a bit much, opt for small floral prints to create a country cottage look. Pick up vintage floral plates at the thrift store when you see them. Not a set, just one or two of a great old pattern. The mix-matched look creates whimsy on the table. Use votives strewn across the table for light. Cloth napkins and tea cups with a pot of great tea would make a lovely theme.

You could use a bright oil cloth table covering; they are shiny and fun and add a touch of vintage to your table. Solid plates, earthenware preferably but plain colored dishes set off the colors in the oil cloth. Amusing sayings on cocktail napkins give an element of surprise when folks pick up their napkin. I have a few right now that say, “Can I be the designated drinker?”

How about an Indian blanket like the one shown? It adds a pop of southwestern to the table. Use wood candle holders or faux wood candles and pine cones to decorate the table. Fiesta ware or even toile china looks great on these blankets. Wine glasses add sparkle and cloth napkins will complete the look.

Lastly, a quilt as the table cloth, mix-matched china, small canning jars for drinks, and tall candles with a tea pot filled with flowers create a funky elegance to your gathering.

With this seafood recipe, Champaign would be excellent. So would a Pinot Grigio but being a red lover, I found that a good Pinot Noir fits nicely as well. A loaf of fresh Italian or French bread is a must to sop up the glorious dredges. Happy New Year my friends!

Katie Lynn Sanders is an urban Farmgirl, writer, Mama, Grammie, and herbalist. Katie lives with her husband, Gandalf the Great Pyrenees, kitties, and seven chickens in a hundred year old adobe in Pueblo. She is the writer of two blogs; FarmgirlSchool.org and DancingWithFeathers.com. You can find all of Katie's books at www.AuthorKatieSanders.com